I posted an article yesterday about how breathing can improve your way of life and as promised here is the follow up article extending some good breathing exercises in your direction.

If you missed my article yesterday, and want to have a look, please just follow the link below:
https://steemit.com/psychology/@baracuda/breathing-is-more-than-just-a-necesity

One of the best tools to improve general health and well being is of course practicing deep breathing, this combine with an active life and a healthy diet is a sure fire way to go about a healthy day. Deep breathing has also been proven to help treat depression, anxiety, PTSD, COPD, and asthma. So here are some healthy deep breathing exercises for you to practice.

Complete Belly Breath

• Place one hand on your belly
• Relax your abdominal muscles
• Slowly inhale through the nose, allow the air to go right down to the bottom of your lungs.
• Feel your abdomen rise, and the lower parts of the lungs expanding.
• Continue to inhale as your rib cage expands outward, and finally, the collar bones rise.
• At the peak of the inhalation, pause for a moment.
• Now gently exhale from the top of your lungs to the bottom.
• When you are finished exhaling, contract your abdominal muscles slightly to push residual air out of the bottom of your lungs.

Alternate Nostril Breathing:

This is a great exercise to do when you are feeling anxious or un-grounded.

• Hold your right thumb over your right nostril
• Inhale deeply through your left nostril.
• At the peak of your inhalation, close off your left nostril with your fourth finger.
• Lift your right thumb, and then exhale smoothly through your right nostril.
• After a full exhalation, inhale through the right nostril.
• Close it off with your right thumb at the peak of your inhalation.
• Lift your fourth finger and exhale smoothly through your left nostril.
  Continue with this practice for 3 to 5 minutes, alternating your breathing through each nostril. Your breathing should be effortless, with your mind gently observing the inflow and outflow of breath.

Ocean’s Breath:

This one works especially well when you feel angry, irritated, or frustrated.

• Take an inhalation that is slightly deeper than normal.
• With your mouth closed, exhale through your nose while constricting your throat muscles.
• If you are doing this correctly, you should sound like waves on the ocean.
• Use the same method for the inflow breath, gently constricting your throat as you inhale.

Energizing Breath:

A good practice for those days when you are feeling blue and sluggish helping you regain some necessary energy.

• Begin by relaxing your shoulders
• Take a few deep, full breaths from your abdomen.
• Start exhaling forcefully through your nose
  *Followed by forceful, deep inhalations at the rate of one second per cycle.
• These breaths should be entirely from your diaphragm
• Try too keep your head, neck, shoulders, and chest as still as possible while your belly moves in and out.
• Start by doing a round of ten breaths
• After 15 to 30 seconds, begin the next round with 20 breaths.
• Pause for 30 seconds then complete a third round of 30 breaths.

Just remember if you start to feel dizzy or uncomfortable during any of these exercises you are free to take a break and try at a later stage, it is important to listen to your body!